Sons of Heroes of the War Before
by marylinusca
Summary: A Remembrance Day Vignette November 11, 1928


**Sons of Heroes of the War Before**

**_November 11, 1928_**

Disclaming ownership of the poem, and the characters from the television program "Hogan's Heroes".

"In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (M.D.), 1872-1918

**_In Flanders fields the poppies blow  
Between the crosses, row on row,  
That mark our place;_**

"We are here, on the tenth year since the secession of hostilities," said the man behind the podium, puffing out his beribboned chest, "to honour the living saviours of our beloved France, to mourn our slain heroes, and to pray for enduring peace. May we never again need to fight, yet, if we must fight, let us fight valiantly and with honour."

As he stood beside his father and uncle on the field of Verdun, nine-year-old Louis LeBeau shivered and hugged his brown woollen jacket tighter around his small body. Many times he had heard their tales about the Great War, yet he had never before seen his father look so sad, or so proud as he saw him now. Glancing around, he saw other proud men weeping, other sons bewildered by their father's tears.

Wherever he looked, rows of white crosses seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. Orderly. Pristine. Even serene. He shivered again. The ground had been neither pristine nor serene at the time spoken of by the general; but gouged by deep trenches. Miles of trenches. He could see their outlines still. Men lived in them for weeks. The land had stunk of blood and sweat and excrement and rotting flesh. His father had told him so. 

Yet his father and his uncle and thousands upon thousands had endured the sight and the smell and the fear twisting within them, because they were fighting for the freedom of France. What had made les Boches invade, he did not know. Neither, it seemed, had his father and uncle. Yet it was enough that they had invaded La Patrie.

The bark of the few old trees standing among the new growth bore burns and scars from fire and munitions. He could see the truncated limbs. By his father's foot lay a tiny bit of barbed wire. There had been coils of such wire across these fields. Men crossing across this 'no man's land' had been entangled in them, targets for enemy fire.

"If they were killed immediately, it would have been merciful release; but that was seldom their fate," his father had said. "They usually died slowly. When the fighting stopped, one could still hear the moans and prayers. In French, in English or in Flemish or German, cries are cries and prayers are prayers. For us who listened, yet could do nothing to relieve them: that, mon fils, was agony as well at first. When they finally died, their corpses dangled like scarecrows, food for the ravens. Our friends and our foes, all were men and soldiers, and le bon Dieu alone knew if their fate would be ours on the morrow.

"We grew to bear it, even to make black jests about death.  Still, it was a bad time.  A very bad time. I hope you will never know such a time."

Louis' father hugged him against his side. "Remember this day always, mon petit fils. Remember the sacrifice these men made. Pray le bon Dieu that never again will this ground soak up blood."

**_…and in the sky  
The larks, still bravely singing, fly  
Scarce heard amid the guns below. _**

Wrapped in their blankets, Andrew and Paul Carter listened to their fathers and their grandfather preparing breakfast outside their tent. It was still pitch dark, but they could sense the approach of dawn. A good morning for hunting. They were eager to learn all they could from their grandfather. Grandfather White Wolf knew so much about the old ways. He had taught them how to draw bow when they were small, and, even in his seventies, he was still the best archer in the Dakotas. The best hunter and trapper, the most skilled botanist, and the best man they knew.

"Well, sleepyheads? Why aren't you up and dressed by now? The game won't wait for you to shoot them." James Carter - White Wolf to all who knew him – entered their tent and shook the remnants of sleep out of them. "Hustle your cottontail, Rabbit, and give your dad and your Uncle Brook a paw with breakfast. I want to talk to Deer alone."

"Sure thing, Grandfather." Paul Carter – Angry Rabbit – made a face at his cousin and scurried outside. Andrew – Little Deer – saw the old man's face grow serious as he turned from Paul's back to him. What had he done wrong this time?

"Grandfather, I'm sorry I tripped and startled the birds from cover and couldn't get the fire started and – ."

White Wolf raised a hand. Andrew immediately fell silent.

The patriarch crossed his arms across his broad chest and studied his grandson so carefully that Andrew could barely keep from squirming. He did not squirm. He knew his grandfather expected him to act like a warrior at all times. Warriors stayed still as stones, and did not show fear.

"Little Deer, I want you to know that you are Lakota. You are Sioux. Do not ever forget that."

"I won't, Grandfather," Andrew replied solemnly.

"I also want you to know that I love you, very much," White Wolf said unemotionally. His dark eyes took his grandson's captive. "Do not ever doubt my love for you."

"No, Grandfather." Andrew swallowed.

"You had doubted both.  You must not."

Andrew was surprised that his grandfather could read his mind so well. He summoned his courage. "Grandfather, why am I different? Why am I pale?"

"It happens in our family. Sometimes it skips a generation. My father resembled you. He was skilled in our lore, and greatly respected as a healer." White Wolf reached down and touched Andrew's chest. "You are of my blood, and you are a warrior, here, in your heart. I know that you are. I have felt it in my own heart, and I have had visions. You will be called upon to prove how brave you are. Never doubt yourself, whatever you are called upon to do, and never doubt my love for you."

Andrew pondered this. It frightened him. "I promise, Grandfather."

White Wolf smiled, satisfied. He patted Andrew's shoulder. "Now dress and help your cousin."

As he was about to leave, Andrew called out, "Grandfather, is Rabbit a warrior too?"

White Wolf hesitated. "Rabbit is a warrior; but not in the way you are. You are both equal in my eyes; but you are individuals. I am glad that you and he are so close; but Little Deer, you will not always be together. You must depend on yourself."

Andrew slowly nodded as he felt the old man's eyes search him again. "I will try, Grandfather."

White Wolf smiled sagely. "You will succeed, Little Deer." 

  
**_We are the Dead. Short days ago  
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,_**

The youth pulled off his cloth cap and bowed his head as he stood beside the truck.

His companion stared at him askance.  "Look, kid. We've got to meet up with the guys at the warehouse and get the booze loaded. We can't stand here listening to geezers gabbling about honouring a bunch of suckers."

The young man glared at him, uttering in a furious whisper, "Shut up and show respect."

The older man narrowed his eyes. He wasn't going to take sass from any punk kid, especially a Negro, no matter how strong this boy looked. Yet, seeing the fire in the youth's eyes, he slunk back, and kept silent.

James Kinchloe gave his companion a sidelong glare, then focused his attention to the memorial service across the street. He did not like the work or the company he was keeping, but what could he do? Crime – even such a crime as smuggling prohibited liquor across the Detroit River – paid well and he needed the money. After his mother had died of heart failure the previous spring, he had to provide for himself and his thirteen-year-old sister. He would be damned if he let the authorities take Jessie from him and put her in an orphanage. If it came to that, if he could bear the separation, he would give her up to his Uncle Rosh here in Canada; but he could not live on a farm, not even on his uncle's, not even for her. He was a city boy, and an American.  He did not want to be, could not be, anything else.

Composing his thoughts, pondering all that the service he was witnessing meant, he saw a woman marshal a group of children together before the granite plinth and the poppies. He heard their treble voices begin reciting "In Flanders' Fields". The words of the poem stirred him deeply. He no longer stood across the road from the memorial and the small crowd. He stood beside a man from a memory and a twelve-year-old photograph. He watched that man swing his squealing baby daughter high above his head. He heard the man's laughter; heard his deep voice coo, "There's my beauty. There's my Jessie." Then, to him, clapping his small back heartily, "You'll be the man of the house while I'm gone, James. Take good care of your sister."

He felt as proud as only a five-year-old boy could feel when his dad gives him a man-to-man assignment. 

And he felt as sick and helpless as only a seven-year-old boy could feel when he saw his mother bent double over a telegram, crying his father's name over and over again.

James Kinchloe looked up at the grey sky. He wondered if his mom and dad were together now, if they saw him pay his respects to them, and if they disapproved of what he must do to keep Jessie with him. He could not let Uncle Rosh take care of her. That was his job.

**_Loved, and were loved, and now we lie  
In Flanders fields._**

Marlena Falke, hastening across Queen's Park, glanced up at the birds flying past the Legislature, then lowered her eyes to the path before her. The leaves were rapidly falling from the poplar, oak, and maple trees, making the going slippery and treacherous. Winter was coming, and as usual, it caught her unprepared.

The Eaton's Christmas parade would pass here next weekend. She wanted to see it, but she had homework to do, textbooks to study. No time to waste thinking about the weather or frivolities. It was all she could do in this high wind to keep her long hair from snarling out of her bun and blinding her eyes.

She bumped into the man's back. Why did he stand there, blocking her way? She looked up again, and saw people gathered around a tall marker. Then she saw the splash of colour before the grey-white stone. Poppies. A wreath of poppies. And the people each wore a poppy. Of course. It was November 11th. Remembrance Day.

A waste of good lives. That's all war was. And those who came back were sick, maimed. Useless. Dependant on people's charity. She looked closer at the man she had butted into. He lived near her rooms. She saw him frequently. He had been pointed out to her as the son of a prominent businessman who had been a colonel in the militia. His face: half of it was shattered. From what remained, she could see how handsome he had been. Ten years older than her? Twenty? She looked quickly away, and cursed both the war for making him repulsive to look upon, and herself for feeling repulsion.

War was stupid, and the man was stupid to have believed his father's patriotic nonsense and to have fought in it.

Yet who was she to cast stones? If she was going to become a healer, she had to learn not to be a judge. 

She heard the bell of Wycliffe College chapel toll eleven o'clock. The whole park, the whole of Toronto, seemed to go silent as the bell tolled. She saw the man raise his one remaining eye to the tip of the cenotaph, as if contemplating lost youth and lost friends. As if thinking, whatever it was worth, whatever it had cost or will still cost, he had done his duty.

Marlena bowed her head. The man had seen death in the face, felt it tear his face to bits. He had seen his friends die. Could she have faced what he had endured? Could she face what he was enduring so stoically now? Whatever his motives, whatever her feelings about war, he was a suffering man and she had resolved to become a doctor of medicine. That meant she owed him her compassion, and someday he might require her skill.

Pray God his generation was the last to suffer the horror. Pray God his courage would be rewarded, at least with a long, long peace.

  
**_Take up our quarrel with the foe:  
To you from failing hands we throw  
The torch; be yours to hold it high._**

Peter Newkirk had his own quarrel with the foe, but that foe was his father.

It happened every Armistice Day. It happened almost every day, but Armistice Day was the worst because his old man drank the most then. If he only slept it off, it would not be so bad; but he always came home roaring drunk after the pub closed, cursing the government, cursing his wife and daughter, cursing his son. If he had kept it to cursing, it could have been borne; but this year, the tenth anniversary, it had been too much.

"Land fit for heroes?" his father had ranted. "Land Fit for Heroes? What do those fat asses in Parliament know about heroes? Were they at Verdun? At Ypres? Did they slog in the mud? Did they watch their mates die taking an inch of ground?"

Perhaps Mavis had meant to console their father, but her words were taken wrong. He lunged at her – struck her hard, so that she fell and lay as if dead. 

Something broke in Peter then. He cursed his father. Swore at him. Struck him in the face. Every dirty name and word that came into his head, he spat out. And his father swore back at him. Cursed him. Hit him again and again. Said he was not his son. Said that he and Mavis were bastards and that their mother – his own wife – was a common streetwalker.

His mother came to him later. "Please understand, Peter. Your dad saw too much, he expected too much, and he hurt too much." She tried to explain why she put up with his abuse. "He was gassed, and he was shell shocked. He's not been the man I married; but I married him for better and for worse. I still love him and I will not leave him."

"But I don't love him, Mum, and I don't see how you can. He doesn't even try to hold down a job. You and Gran work your fingers to the bones and he doesn't appreciate it. Says we live in a pigsty. Well then, why doesn't he get off his duff and do something about earning our bread?"

"Because he can't. I don't know why. When he came home, he tried to get work; but something happened when the men came home – a post-war depression they call it – and there wasn't enough money or jobs to go around. And your dad – well, he saw things that frightened him. The gin helps him deal with that. Please, Peter. Understand. He's a sick man, and he is your father."

Peter flung her consoling arm away. "Mum, the war ended ten years ago. Other blokes pulled through."

"Don't shout so. Your dad's not like other blokes. He can't pull himself together. Maybe they can't either. I don't know; but he's still my husband and your father. You're fifteen now. Almost a man. Why don't you try to help us help him?"

"Cause he won't help himself. He's nothing but a worthless drunk and yet he says I'm the layabout."

"Peter Newkirk! Respect your father!"

"Why? Because he beats you and Mavis? Look, mum. Alfie the Artist's at least teaching me a trade."

"Picking pockets is a trade?" 

"Magic too. Alfie says I've got a gift as a magician and I'm great with accents. I'll play the Palladium and be famous some day. Then I'll take care of you and Mav and Gran. I'll treat you like royalty."

His mother shook her head, as if exasperated. "Alf Burke's a criminal and he's turning you into one."

Peter Newkirk put his hands on his mother's arms and tried to keep his temper. "Mum. Alfie Burke is my friend, and he's been more of a father to me than Dad's ever been. I won't have you saying a word against him."

  
**_If ye break faith with us who die  
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
In Flanders fields. _**

Hans Schultz stood at the window of the Schatze Toy Company – his family's pride and joy for over two hundred years. The largest, finest toy company in Germany was in grave financial trouble. Cheaper, mass produced toys from the United States were gobbling up the European market, and there still remained a stigma on anything made in Germany. A legacy from the last war, like defeat.

He thought of the war, of the bitter taste defeat left in German mouths. He thought of the war reparations his country must pay the victors. He thought of Leutnant Kummler; wondered how peace had left him. He recalled with a shudder the day he had saved the officer's life at Sechault. He shivered as he thought of the black soldiers he had seen and shot at. The Hell-fighters, they were called. He had never seen men so fierce, so brave, so indomitable. They had the spirits of Germans. Leutnant Kummler said as much. It was a pity to have killed them, but they would not surrender.

The war had been a terrible, tragic stalemate. He hoped it was the war that ended war. How could another one happen?

Did he cause the war? Did the Kaiser? Did it matter? Germany was poor, and growing poorer. They could not afford another fight.

His battle was now against his creditors. What was he going to do? He did not want to lay off more of his employees; but what could he do? Fold the company? No. He could not do that. Especially not before Christmas. He could not put his people out of work.

He must have faith that this year people will buy Schatze toys. He must have faith in the spirit of the season and in the quality of his products.

He picked up a toy soldier, studied it intently, and then put it down upon his desk. His products were the best, most carefully crafted toys ever made; just as his father's had been. Papa would be proud of him, just as he was proud of his workers. 

He picked up a list. As he scanned it, his eyes twinkled. He loved playing Saint Nicholas to the orphans and the sick children in the hospitals. So did his employees. They not only gave their time, they gave what little money they could spare back into the benevolent fund to make sure the little ones got the Schatze Company's very best. It was not mere charity. It was seeing the joy in those little faces that drove them on. That was profit no one could take from them.

He had an appointment with his banker tomorrow. He would go with confidence, and he would get his loan. Nothing defeated the Schatze Toy Company. It had survived many wars and many depressions. He would never surrender it. He would never break faith with his family, with his employees, and with the little children.


End file.
